The Body and its Guard
by idexile
Summary: The story of Clover from the day Project Purity was switched on to her death.


A/N: Fallout belongs to Bethesda; I hold no rights to it.

A/N 2: I'm doing this thing as a distraction from another story, so according to my plans it won't be exceptionally good or updated often. While writing this I took no notice of what the canon has to say about what happened in the Capital Wasteland after Fallout 3, but I don't mean to make my ideas pass as canon or berate established canon.

01. Clover

Bleeding on Eulogy's floor with buckshot in her stomach old Clover couldn't help but laugh at the irony of her last moments on Earth. All her life she dreamt of buying the farm while guarding a body. And then, five hours after she admits to herself she no longer wants her life to end this way - BAM! She dies guarding a body.

It is true what they say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That night on the floor of old Eulogy's Pad she experienced just that.

Years ago, when that pipe-mountain thingie near Rivet started giving people free purified water, even the dumbest of raiders realized it was the beginning of a new age, and that they should secure their retirement homes until they become too thriving to withstand their assault. Folks from Evergreen Mills immediately started marching east to secure their retirements, and by the charming Arefu they met a big mean Paradise Falls army of slavers. They shared a few whiskies and stories of dismemberments and headshots. The next morning, the leader of the Paradise Falls party, Ymir, and the leader of Evergreen Mills party, some punk named Rodger, drew straws. Ymir got the short one so he led his men into the tunnels of Meresti while Rodger the punk led his men up the ramp to Arefu. The next evening, the two men met again for another whisky and both agreed that the fact that both places were abandoned by the time they got there was a real buzz kill.

'Y'know' Ymir said to Rodger halfway through the second bottle 'I heard them Big Towners got some new tricks up their sleeves, enough so that the mutants don't bother them no more'

'You don't say' Rodger replied 'If we attacked them, then some of us could get killed!'

'Yeah' Ymir passed the whisky.

'We leave at dawn then' Rodger said.

The Big Towners did have some tricks up their sleeves, and some people indeed die on the raiders and slavers' side, but it was considerably more fun than Arefu. Since that day, Evergreen and Paradise began a mutual friendship, with the former growing in power after their increased raids. Evergreen Mills Bazaar was even expanded, and new prostitutes were bought from Paradise Falls to accommodate the raiders' needs. That's how Clover ended up as a raider whore.

'I ain't no slut!' she spat at the leader of the raiders, a punk named Terry who got his position after offing poor 'ol punk Rodger, 'I'm a bodyguard! I need a body to guard!'

'Guard them from sex abstinence then'

Clover of all people knew what a terrible thing sex abstinence could be, and thus decided to devote herself to protecting the fine men of Evergreen Mills from this fatal disease.

One day, she was in her room blowing a punk named Garry, the leader of Evergreen Mills who got his position after offing poor 'ol punk Terry, when some Genius of the Wastes descended into the Bazaar of Evergreen Mills with the intention to stop the raider threat forever.

'What was that?' Garry asked when he heard the shots.

'Probably someone's having an argument' Clover dismissed his worries 'Don't worry, I'll protect you from arguments as long as you're here, body'

A minute later, the genius in Combat Armour kicked in the door and pointed his plasma rifle at the two of them. Clover grabbed her sawed-off from between the mattresses and fed the idiot a buckshot, all without taking her mouth off of Garry's cock. Needless to say, Garry was impressed.

'I'm gonna make you a full-blown raider' he said.

'No dice, I need a body to protect' she replied.

'Every man and woman out there is protecting -my- body by bringing me enough stuff so I wouldn't die of poverty'

Clover of all people knew what a terrible thing poverty could be, and so decided to devote herself to protecting the fine leader of Evergreen Mills from this fate.

Two days later, Clover left Evergreen Mills with a raiding party still feeling weird with the body she was to protect not being beside her. She did, however, return with the party two days later

with her head held high and enough provisions to protect Manny, the leader of Evergreen Mills who got his position after offing poor 'ol punk Garry, from poverty.

As months passed, Clover became somewhat irritated by her job. For example, this one time she went on a long raid to some newly-established town in the west. The trip there and back took three weeks and when she returned, she learnt that while she began this mission in order to protect the leader of Evergreen Mills, a punk named Harry who got his position after offing poor 'ol punk Larry, a week into her mission she was technically protecting the leader of Evergreen Mills, Barry, who got his position after offing poor 'ol punk Harry, from poverty, and on her way back she was working to protect some punk named Bob, who immediately upon her arrival was replaced by a punk named Michelle. Clover reasoned that she cannot work without knowing who the fuck she was protecting from poverty, so she decided, being a free raider, to return to Paradise Falls, where there was only one leader, a punk named Eulogy, and he wasn't about to be offed by anyone.

Clover returned to Paradise Falls at a historic day: the night before her arrival seventeen bastard sons of Eulogy, all from different women, flocked into the slaver town and threw the biggest party the place had ever seen. By six o'clock in the morning, Eulogy's kids had all passed out in different places in the settlement. When Clover arrived at three in the afternoon, Eulogy's kids woke up and saw that there were only six of them left alive. Clover dropped her duffle bag in front of Eulogy's place and cupped her forehead as word started going around that Eulogy's sons were back, and that they're starting a war for their inheritance: Paradise Falls. When Forty suggested Eulogy that this may lead to a lot of chaos and dead bodies, Eulogy simply shrugged and went inside his house to find some vodka. And like this, five seconds after she arrived, Clover was faced with the possibility of the same problem she ran away from catching up to her in Paradise Falls.

'I'm back, Eulogy' Clover approached the slaver master before he could get his vodka 'And I'm a raider now'

'Good for you' the man replied with his usual calm.

'And what are you going to do now? Let your kids fight it out for your legacy?'

'You got a problem?'

'I left Evergreen Mills because I was tired from my bodies changing every couple of days, don't tell me this shit's gonna happen here as well!'

Eulogy shook his head 'Just pick one of them as you body and protect him. Trust me, you'll see a lot work in the coming weeks'

Clover thought about it and decided that Eulogy was right: siding with one of those upstarts would get her into a lot of action. The problem was, after being a slave so long, she couldn't pick a body to protect.

A few days later, she was still pondering this problem while drinking whisky with Carolina and Ymir, when the latter was approached by a scrawny little man, one of Eulogy's kids.

'Ymir... We are friends, aren't we? How about you join me? Together we can beat these idiots and rule over Paradise Falls together!'

'And why would I want to side with -you- specifically?' Ymir's cheerful tone indicated him taking it as a joke.

'I've got a lot of people behind me, and the only one who can match me now is Grouse, and I know you don't want -him- running the place'

'What? Grouse is doin' this too? But he's not one of you bastards! What does Eulogy say to this?'

'He doesn't care'

Ymir considered this for a moment 'So that means anyone can try and win his legacy?'

'Well, yes...'

Carolina was always a fan of Ymir's skill with a sledgehammer. Though the skinny bastard had a pistol ready in its holster on his hip, he didn't even manage to draw it before Ymir threw his hand over his shoulder, grabbed his Super Sledge, and, drawing a beautiful arc in the air, hit the scrawny man so hard his head went out through the ass half a second later.

'Always wanted to be the leader' Ymir said, smiling from ear to ear 'Sounds like fun. You girls with me?'

'Yeah!' Carolina and Clover replied cheerfully in unison.

'Then first we need something that would turn the tide in our favour!'

'I know!' Carolina said 'My papa used to say that caps rule everything; he called it echo-nommings. So maybe we could take over Pronto's!'

Ymir agreed and a minute later Pronto's head came out of his ass and Carolina became the new proprietor of 'Lock and Load'. When Eulogy came by the shop that evening and asked what Carolina was doing behind the counter she replied that she was controlling the echo-nommings of the town so Ymir would be the king of slavers after Eulogy's death. When Eulogy asked her where Pronto was, she replied he was 'around' motioning at blood stains on the wall behind the counter. The old slaver only chuckled to that statement and wished her the best of luck.

All hell broke loose after that day as Ymir and Grouse's men faced each other off in shootouts. When the dust settled, everyone looked at Grouse, his head in his ass, and Ymir, penetrated by a dozen bullets and barely clinging on to life. His side had won.

'Jotun!' Ymir exclaimed with the last of his strength and his some ran up to his father 'Jotun... when Eulogy goes, you'll inherit... Paradise... Falls... as my son'

Those raiders who survived through this started cheering, while Jotun said nothing. The next time Clover fucked Eulogy, she asked him afterwards if he was satisfied with the outcome of the 'race for the throne', her voice indicating that she was sure glad it was over any way. That question Eulogy answered with a mischievous grin and a whispered 'not if I know the strength of my own seed'.

As unsettling as Eulogy's words were, Clover was happy the race was over and signed up for the slave drives to protect the only master around, Eulogy, from poverty, knowing it will be a long time until her body changes, and the change was already bound to be smooth. In Clover's mind, guarding a body always meant stopping bullets -and- blowjobs, and while in Evergreen Mills she had to choose either one of them, in Paradise Falls she didn't need to choose - he could blow -and- 'guard' Eulogy... or so she thought until she came over to Eulogy's and saw a dozen naked prostitutes - a gift to Eulogy from Jotun. Once more, Clover had to compromise. She went on a fucking spree with almost anyone in town and left for a slave drive a week later. A month later she was pregnant.

Her first son was named Mark and she guessed it was Forty's because the two really looked alike. Clover later gave birth to two more kids, all while taking her four year break from being a slave driver and hiring out her mouth to get by. And get by she did when word spread around about the snake-tongued diva of Paradise Falls. One day, she finally sent her three children to Evergreen Mills 'to give them basic education' though the real fact was that deep inside of her she felt the motherly instinct to protect them and was torn between her subconscious need to protect her children and her obsession with guarding bodies in any way possible, making her instinctively push her children away. With that done, she was looking forward to going back to being a gun when Paradise Falls received a visitor it hadn't in a long time.

Clover was sitting in the outdoor bar with Carolina and listening to her story about how artistic her papa was with a chainsaw and some lost wastelanders, when 'ol Jericho walked in to the bar. While Clover had never met Jericho, Carolina greeted him with open arms. Jericho asked her to tell all the news and rumours floating around, but when he heard how lucky Jotun got he almost chocked on his vodka.

'Jotun? The offspring of that fucker Ymir? No way in hell I'm gonna sit by and watch this!'

And thus Jotun's brains came to be splattered all over the wall and Paradise Falls came to become a war-zone again, with Jotun's supporters opposing Jericho, and more of Eulogy's bastards crawling out of the wastes and claiming stakes and slavers calling the claim of one or another bastard to be rightful and joining their side only to play puppet-master. Clover sighed 'Bastard War Two begins'.

Carolina took Jericho's side eagerly while Clover continued going on enslaving missions. As soon as the new war started Clover found time to fuck Eulogy again and talk with him about the matter properly afterwards, her endeavour successful due to previous Slaughter of the Twelve Sluts that cemented Jericho's defeat over Jotun. Eulogy dismissed her worries saying that the race for the title of second-in-line was a good qualification test for the next leader of slavers. After all, Eulogy let any contestant participate to find the best one and let them do whatever they wanted except mess with the slave pens, who remained the responsibility of Forty, who swore to not side with any of the racers, so Paradise Falls wasn't likely to collapse because of the internal fighting. With the raiders of Evergreen Mills and Fairfax increasing in number along with their spoils: many raiders would turn into slavers because it paid better and there were always openings in the job market, so the slaver population wasn't going to soar because of it. That was the last time irritated Clover came near Eulogy's cock.

A year later the Bastard War Two was still raging all around them with Clover fighting tooth and nail to not let her small party of slavers join any of the contestants. Her party was, after all, the only neutral party in Paradise Falls. She didn't cave in even when Jericho and Carolina approached her, Jericho's campaign having gone horribly bad when one of the bastards, Fergus, took over the Train Tunnel to the Pitt from Jericho. The slave and bullet trade with Ashur is what kept the raiders and slavers of the capital wasteland alive all this time and it was also the most likely reason why the Brotherhood of Steel never bothered them as long as they didn't take a step on their turf, all of which was in the D.C. Clover did not cave in to Jericho and Carolina, and Jericho soon caught a .308 in the leg while walking to the outhouse one night. When his leg healed, he went into a long tirade about how fucked up the entire race for the next-in-line was, how boring it was to scheme and not to shoot people up, that he'd rather get shot while killing people so at least it would be worth it, and that all he went through wasn't worth it to just piss on Ymir's ghost. With that he left, and was never seen again in Paradise Falls. Clover would still hear rumours about him from time to time, but most of them sounded like fairy-tales: 'The Tale of Jericho and the Republic of Dave Slaughter', 'Jericho in Rockopolis', 'Jericho: the King of Vault-Under-Garage'. That last one was probably true because she heard that the Outcasts had found a vault that was hidden under the garage, and took it over by relocating His Majesty King of Vault-Under-Garage to the west with a buckshot in the ass.

The war dragged on for almost another decade and Lock and Load saw so many new masters in the years after Ymir's death that Carolina soon lost track of who was her boss, so when she decided to join up permanently with a promising bastard of Eulogy's named Ethan and couldn't remember who she was currently working for she asked Clover to sit down on a chair outside the shop and blow the head off the first racer who came by. Clover sat down on that chair for ten hours, and by the end was ready to sell her sole for a piss, but didn't want to risk Carolina getting shot as that idiot Ethan had already boasted his acquisition of Lock and Load and Carolina's old master, whoever he was, was bound to come for vengeance.

When she finally saw one of Eulogy's bastards approaching, she jumped up, shot him in the face, and then shot for the bathroom. However, while she was taking her well-earned piss, another bastard of Eulogy's went by and took over the shop. When Clover came back into the shop she saw an unfamiliar woman behind the counter.

'Who are you?' Clover asked.

'Either Thrusty or Stabrina, I haven't decided yet'

'And where's Carolina?'

'Around' Thrusty or Stabrina motioned at the blood stains on the wall behind the counter.

'Oh... and who does this store belong to?'

'Adam. He's a...'

'I don't care who he is, I wanna work for him, but only if I get to go out catching slaves instead of staying in this asylum'

Adam appeared to be a strong competitor in the race for Paradise Falls, and Clover served him for a couple of years until his victory was final and he was established as the dominant inheritor of Paradise Falls. Clover lost track of how long this peace lasted, but when Adam was assassinated and Bastard War Three began with the whooping amount of twenty bastards crawling out of the wastes, Clover shaved her hair to hide the fact that it was going gray. She felt especially old when the next day after getting her new haircut, her oldest son Mark returned to Paradise Falls form Evergreen Mills, now a fully grown up tall man with a small frame and blond hair that he had cut closely. Her son was a silent and sullen man, though she came to learn that under his awkward social graces a sharp mind was hidden.

'Hi mom'

'Hi... uh...'

'Mark. James and Cara are dead'

'James and Cara. Dead. Do I have any more children?'

Apparently, Mark inherited Clover's hatred for all the political struggles for leadership and was apparently completely happy simply looking after his father Forty, who, never having been the sharpest tool in the tool-shed, came to be completely retarded in his old age.

A year later, when it was certain this new race for the throne was going to take long, and when Clover noticed she couldn't cover as much distance as she could have in the past, she went to Lock and Load, shot Thrusty or Stabrina in the face, and became the new proprietor of the shop.

'Where's Stabrina!' a man barged into her shop five minutes into her new career.

'She and Thrusty are around' Clover replied calmly motioning at the bloody wall behind the counter.

'Who do you work for?' the man drew his gun.

'Nobody' Clover was still indifferent.

'Then you work for me!' the man stated and Clover just shrugged and opened an issue of Guns and Bullets.

The next day a red-haired woman came into the shop and stated, 'This shop is mine!'

Clover was still reading the same issue of Guns and Bullets and still as indifferent as the day before 'Is the man who owned his place yesterday dead?'

'I don't know...' the red-hair wavered 'What's his name?'

'I don't know'

The two shared a moment in silence.

'Tell you what' Clover said picking up her old sawed-off from under the counter and handing it to the girl 'You take a seat out front and kill the first sonuvabitch who comes by and the matter will be settled'

Red-hair did just that. Fifteen minutes later Clover heard some shots and a very tall man in a business suit barged inside a second later.

'This shop is mine!'

Clover sighed, put down her magazine, stood up, and walked out of the store. From that moment on, she decided to switch careers and become a nurse to Eulogy, who's health was failing and dick was too squishy, ensuring Clover that she'd keep her resolution to never come near it again.

Clover stayed at Eulogy's along with his second-in-command Forty and her and Forty's son Mark. Though Clover never really talked with Forty, she became close with her own son Mark, and thus she could be a mother, a body-guard, and, every night between ten and twelve, a lover. Admittedly, a woman her age could only please a man with her mouth in the dark, and still not expect to get a lot of customers, but as soon as her lips felt another dick she found out she hadn't lost her touch and like phoenix from the ashes the snake-tongued diva of Paradise Falls came back into existence with a storm. These were the best years of her life, far better than under Adam, despite the war outside the door.

Mark was a nurse to Forty like Clover was nurse to Eulogy. Forty had become so dim with years that he couldn't understand where he was. One time, he wandered off into the wasteland and came back only three days later, with a bear trap on each of his legs. Old Cutter had to amputate both of them and Mark salvaged a trunk from one of the buildings and made it into a portable throne for his father, complete with two slaves to carry it. Word around Paradise Falls was that the trunk was filled with things most precious to Forty because Mark believed the memories of better days would increase his father's lifespan. The strange thing was, as soon as this rumour has become the truth in most people's minds and the slavers started seeing Mark as a diligent son, and thus, a fucking pussy, he left Paradise Falls and moved to Evergreen Mills.

Not long after that the old slaver lord passed away. He was to be cremated outside Paradise Falls and the ceremony was the single occasion that brought all the contestants to his heritage together. Everybody was wearing old pre-war business suits, even Forty up on his trunk, though many doubted if he was aware enough to understand that they were burying his employer. Cutter, having lived through the entire struggle, was the oldest person around now, except for that good for nothing Forty. Thus, when Eulogy's body was set on fire, she addressed the crowd and encouraged them to finally end bickering among themselves and try to solve their problems by talking before Paradise Falls collapses.

Clover heard her name being called and turned her head: Mark was waving to her from the Paradise Falls gate. She left the men to bicker among themselves while she approached her son, more surprised because of his sudden return than she was of his sudden departure.

'What're you doing here?' Clover asked.

'I came to attend Eulogy's funeral' he said 'Are all possible benefactors there?'

'Yes... why?'

Mark took a detonator from the pocket of his jacket 'I really like Paradise Falls more than Evergreen Mills'

He pushed the button and the entire funeral, which was slowly turning into a shootout, evaporated in a small nuclear explosion caused by a few mini-nukes hidden Forty's trunk-throne.

Clover wasn't taken aback by Mark killing his own father to become the new leader of Paradise Falls, she even complimented his intelligence: apparently, Mark had joined the competition years ago, and by using his smarts he managed to win in one fell swoop. A dozen of the most loyal raiders from Evergreen Mills suddenly entered the town, and, along with Mark's secret accomplices among the raiders, performed a quick series of executions that left no-one opposing Mark alive.

The question of the future of Paradise Falls was finally solved, with no one left to challenge Mark and his rule over the settlement.

'Will you stay with me to 'ol Eulogy's?' Mark asked his mother as dusk approached. Clover nodded: where else would she go?

Sitting down in front of an old mirror Clover looked at her face: she was an old woman now, the mother of the ruler of all slavers in the Capital Wasteland... and with Eulogy's funeral she was facing a new problem: where was she going to find a new body to guard? Guarding a body always meant having sex with it as well in Clover's mind and while she -could- protect Mark having sex with her son wasn't an option, even for a crazy bitch like Clover. Compromise again? She looked at her reflection again. She was now the oldest person in Paradise Falls, the only person left alive since that pile of pipes up near Rivet started giving out free and clean water fifty years ago. Perhaps... time has come for her to finally settle, perhaps she wasn't qualified to be a bodyguard in any sense anymore, maybe... maybe she doesn't need it anymore. Maybe it was just old age talking, but she decided she doesn't. Enough with the bodies, she would live for herself now.

She felt very strongly about her resolution as she went to bed that night, but when she was woken up by the sounds of gunfire downstairs, she had forgotten all about it. She ran into her son's room and woke him up, ready to do anything to protect him. There was only one assailant that night and he made it into Mark's room. He fired his Combat Shotgun and Clover jumped in front of her son, protecting the body despite her recent change of heart.

Mark put down the assailant and put his mother to rest, burying her outside Paradise Falls. The assassin was working for some punk named Perry, the guy who was hoping to become the leader of Evergreen Mills by offing poor 'ol Mark. Mark immediately sent one of his men to Evergreen to tell that bastard that Mark was only interested in Paradise Falls and that Perry can do whatever he likes in Evergreen. Once he arrived, the messenger reported to a man named Vance Simms who had killed, among many others, poor 'ol punk Perry and proclaimed himself the leader of Evergreen Mills. Vance shrugged and accepted that, focusing instead on the group of raider competitors coming in from the west, a fearless bunch in black leather armour who called themselves The Kingdom of Jericho. Vance Simms beat Mark's record of being the longest-lived leader of Evergreen Mills and ruled until he died of cancer well into his seventies. Mark and Vance would meet from time to time, either in Evergreen or in Paradise, to chat and organize raids, sometimes joined by a fiery-tempered ginger mistress of Fairfax called Cola. The triumvirate of Vance, Mark, and Cola ruled over the north-western half of the capital wasteland for many years, each of them dying a few days after another and leaving behind a succession war that would ultimately destroy all they have built.


End file.
